Without armour

Well that was unexpected. After all the hand wringing, Blizzard drops one of their brilliant cinematics, perfectly targetted to assuage the wavering Horde players.

As suspected, Saurfang is being given the role of the moral core of the Horde, and it’s immensely relieving to watch. Sure it’s doesn’t let we Horde players off the hook - the World Tree is still burnt to cinders - but it does allow us to believe there is a better path to follow. The player engagement must be off the hook at the moment. I bampfed to Dalaran last night to find a spontaneous group of players slow marching around the mid city, yelling that this was a protest to demand Saurfang be installed as Warchief. And this is not on a RP realm, which demonstrates how hard all this has hit.

Another great spontaneous player protest that has emerged is players hiding their shoulder armour, in deference to Saurfang and his Troll disciple. Or DeadlyBossMods adding Saurfang’s sage “Don’t die” advice as a Raid Warning. I do wonder if this was dropped early, but once again it’s much more likely that Blizzard are just better at this than we give them credit.

Comments:

It’s true, maybe all the outcries of people watching the first 2 trailers was a little early, and the flak targeted at the authors specifically was uncalled for… But sure, walking out on a movie in the first 10 minutes often isn’t fair either, and people are questioned for doing it.

On the other hand, I for example had no clue how soon these trailers are continuing, fwiw I could have been left in the dark well until after launch date of BfA. And if your reading of the Sylvanas trailer was “I hate to be Horde now” I think it’s a really cruel thing to do to your players who might in large numbers be annoyed at the faction bullshit anyway. I mean, I wasn’t subbed for a year and only hyped for WoW in general because everyone seems excited.. the BfA content per se didn’t sound enticing, so even as a bystander I was really annoyed.

I think - hope - the reaction was “I hate to follow Sylvanas” more than “hate to be Horde”. We’ve always been a fractious bunch, but having a leader commit atrocities (again, after Garrosh and Theramore) makes it very uncomfortable. And due to the nature of gaming, we were forced to participate, not merely witness. Which makes us culpable as well.

So I guess we’re all looking for a way back, to prove that whilst Sylvanas may be beyond redemption, the Horde isn’t. That’s what this trailer gave us - even though we’re still about to fight and kill based on a terrible thing we did. Thanks for reading!

Gar..who? :P Yeah, you’re right - back then I hated Garrosh with a passion and would’ve been one of those “Not my Warchief” protesters :P